Within the grape and wine production sector for cavas and other similar products, the use is known of casks, barrels and other containers for storage purposes in wine cellars and stores until such products are distributed. These support structures must be able to withstand considerable weights (multiple casks arranged in several rows and columns) so that they must consist of frameworks with high mechanical strength, which usually results in very large structures that are difficult to install and complicated to transport.
The author of this invention is not aware of a support for casks or similar containers that provides a common solution to the described disadvantages and, at the same time, meets the requirements of high strength, together with ease of handling of the stored containers.
For example, document ES2149749 refers to “Improvements to supports for casks, specifically in supports consisting of a base structure, preferably metal, with a rectangular shape, in which seatings are defined for a pair of casks that are laterally adjacent, from which the vertices emerge uprights that act as spacers in the stacking between supports . . . ”, subsequently introducing, as one of the new features, four pulley wheels that rotate the casks. This publication does not make any reference to any support structure that substantially mitigates the inconveniences cited in the first paragraph of this section.
Patent ES2169713 introduces “A load-bearing structure for the handling and stacking of casks, essentially characterised in that it consists of load sleds, with capacity for at least three casks, each aligned longitudinally”. This structure continues to be quite voluminous and so, both transport and storage remain relatively complicated.
Document ES1053480U can also be cited as another example, “Support for casks, of the type that incorporates a rectangular base platform, incorporating the means to couple a pair of casks and fitted with, in correspondence with its vertices, tubular elements perpendicular to the general plane of the same, for fixed plug-in coupling of spacer uprights that permit stacking between supports, characterised in that the cited base platform consists of a rectangular frame, from the lower part of which emerge many uniformly distributed short feet, which relate the said frame with four lower rims, comprising billets with rounded ends, located in correspondence with each of the frame sides . . . ”. This document introduces a square, definitely complex support, with substantially the same inconveniences cited in the previous paragraphs.
Moreover, almost without exception, current supports for casks all suffer from the inconvenience of their large size, which means they have to be assembled onsite from component elements, involving, for example, welding and painting processes which could turn out to be dangerous in a wine cellar. The alternative is to transport them already assembled from the factory to the wine cellar, which, because of size factors, would involve significant logistics problems.
Wooden sleepers are available for casks that allow the construction of a base structure on which the casks are supported in a first row on wooden wedges of lower casks and which prevent lateral movement of the casks. Further wedges are installed on the casks in the first row, between the casks that collaborate in supporting the upper rows of casks in a triangular fashion. However, an excess of wood is another inconvenience that can be harmful to the ageing of wine in cellars, because it is well known that the trichloroacetic acid that it can produce is highly contaminant to wine.
The purpose of this invention is to provide a joint solution to all the previously described inconveniences and problems.
Although this section and, in general, the entire descriptive report, normally refers to casks, it must be pointed out that the support described in this invention is also suitable for the storage or stacking of any type of containers that is able to fit in a stable fashion in the associated support elements, without limiting the product inside the container.